Proof: a game without gameplay is cinema (masterworks like Citizen Kane, Godfather), while a game without graphics/sound is literally unplayable (worse than nothing).
Gameplay, then, must be an addition to cinema, not a replacement: it helps you stay immersed in a cinematic world by providing stuff to do. Games with better artwork don't require as much gameplay, a crutch, as games with bad art.
tl;dr a game with better artwork can only be inferior to a game with lesser artwork when the latter has -significantly- better gameplay to compensate, e.g. Witcher 3 vs Dragon's Dogma.
Nah man, just look at roguelikes, extremely simple graphics and no sound, bur they're great since the gameplay is so good.
Angel Hall
>Meanwhile, the most culturally significant videogame of all time: Has.. graphics? We know.
Leo White
The glitcher
Benjamin Green
That's not what you were talking about in your OP and you know it. Besides I'm sure a game that you can play with your monitor off exists so your moved goalpost is moot anyway.
Anthony Turner
>Nah man, just look at roguelikes, extremely simple graphics and no sound, bur they're great since the gameplay is so good. The original Rogue (1980) had competent graphics for its time, and that was partially the key to its success (it was immersive). The most popular roguelikes today have even nicer graphics, and even they are still a niche interest to much more immersive games that are popular today (indeed some games now actually simulating in real-time what Rogue tried to simulate in the player's imagination) with their better art, so your point is moot.
Nathaniel Howard
If you had bothered to read the tl;dr you'd see that TW3 was offered as an obvious exception to the rule, since the interactivity is so boring despite it's amazing art assets.
Caleb Wood
So because it looks pretty it's okay if it's boring? A video game?
John Collins
>That's not what you were talking about in your OP and you know it. The example in the OP of a game being literally unplayable is when there is literally no graphics and sound. Tetris does not qualify for that. Furthermore, -its most culturally influential points over the decades correlate to each time it was given an aesthetic boost or rebranding (e.g. Puyo Puyo) and even the original was graphically competent for its time-, you destroyed your own argument by using Tetris as an example. >Besides I'm sure a game that you can play with your monitor off exists so your moved goalpost is moot anyway. They do exist, they are just almost literally unplayable (since arguably you could count imagining them as playing). But all that matters for our purposes is that such games are completely neglected by humanity whereas the greatest cinematics are considered masterworks. That shows the absolute dependency of gaming on artwork.
Ayden Wright
The tl;dr was: pretty games don't need as much gameplay to keep our interest.
But the exception to that rule is when a slightly less pretty game has significantly better interactivity. That game will keep our attention more than a completely boring, pretty game.
Eli Martinez
My point is that Tetris has pretty much no artwork whatsoever - it's just colored blocks - and it's the most popular game of all time. I wasn't responding to you literally.
>My point is that Tetris has pretty much no artwork whatsoever - it's just colored blocks - and it's the most popular game of all time. It's the most popular game of all time because at the time of its release it was graphically competent and entertaining to play (and in such a time of graphical primacy, the gameplay was much more paramount), and so as an early hit it was able to be infinitely rehashed on every available hardware configuration up until the present day. And even despite that, games with no gameplay at all (cinema) continue to be more popular.
The trend is for ever greater artwork in games, and with that comes less need for gameplay crutches as were necessary in the earlier decades. Indeed, you could say that gameplay focus has been constantly simplified due to graphical shifts (e.g. 2D vs 3D). So is your argument against the reality maintaining that gaming already peaked in the 20th century? Do you really think games 100 years from now will be inferior to primitive shit like Tetris? You would rather play Tetris than a fully interactive and immersive world (most likely VR) of The Godfather?
Hunter Williams
>a game without graphics/sound is literally unplayable (worse than nothing). What are text based rpgs ?
Nathan Parker
>the most popular game of all time GTAV sold more than the original Tetris, so that was a terrible example.
Levi Gutierrez
TW3's gameplay is far above DD's though
Xavier Martinez
>What are text based rpgs ? If they have no graphics then they are not only unplayable but also unreadable.
And yet again someone gives an example of a genre/game that they think is an example of bad graphics yet was at its most popular precisely in the early years of graphical infancy.
>Dragon's Dogma >good gameplay >jump on monster and mash a single button Dragonds Dogma looks cool but gameplay wise it's mediocre for a game that is supposed to focus on gameplay. The only good gameplay aspect of DD are the pawns and your ability to regulate their behavior. Sadly an imperfect system but is in a way a variant of the AI modules for Baldur's Gate 2 companions or the AI variants for DA:O. There were even RTS games that experimented in this field, like Warlords:Battlecry and the unit behaviors that can be set there.
Noah Jones
problem is modern kids think gameplay=combat and only combat but gameplay is collection of parts, see Fo4, it got great gunplay and map but lacks everything else, so people call it having bad gameplay, but it simply got all other parts of gameplay bad pic unrelated
it is superb artistically which is in line with the OP, those shapes became iconic only after that game
Brayden Sanchez
Gameplay is more important than anything else I would play games with no textures aslong the gameplay is good If you dont think like this you are retarded
Dylan Murphy
even though "no graphics" isn't even a viable scenario and your argument is complete dogshit, i'd very much prefer a good audio book with some form of dialogue choices to make it qualify as a game to a completely empty tech demo with outstanding graphics
Aaron Hill
You're criticising the gameplay as if it's solely an action title (even though even on those terms it's still better than TW3, the game people are comparing it to) even though the game also has good exploration, and even tactics (pawn-system) like the examples you yourself give.
I've never seen a game combine all those things so well. And they all count as gameplay, not just bmup mechanics (and even those are insane for an open-world, and just look at the shit the enemy can do back to you ).
Easton Perez
>problem is modern kids think gameplay=combat and only combat >but gameplay is collection of parts Hilarious you say this less than a minute after this guy commits precisely that error.
Oliver Nelson
>Do you really think games 100 years from now will be inferior to primitive shit like Tetris? Considering there are more people playing Tetris than all of Witcher 3 and Dragon's Dogma combined, yes.
Jacob Fisher
>it is superb artistically which is in line with the OP, those shapes became iconic only after that game Exactly. The success of Tetris is partially (or even majority) that distinctive art style.
It's hilarious how all these people think they are giving counter-examples when in fact they are massive examples of the graphics rule, just that they got popular in a time when the standards were lower.
Noah Parker
you know dialogue system is also gameplay, walking through the city and thinking" oh damn" is also gameplay, going in to suspension of disbelief about the world is also part of gameplay
gameplay is there for feedback, for you to feel the world as real, it's the only function games that got no world are no better than chess, you may as well play superior version of that
Blake Martinez
>Gameplay is more important than anything else >I would play games with no textures aslong the gameplay is good >If you dont think like this you are retarded Textures in games are "images". So basically >I would play games with no images aslong the gameplay is good If the game had no images at all, you wouldn't be able to play it. It's hilarious that you yourself are this retarded yet still accuse others of being so.
Hudson Edwards
Arcade cabinets existed and looked way better than green ASCII you dumb fucking idiots. Stop talking about shit you know nothing about and stop bumping your retarded thread.
Grayson Evans
>commits precisely that error Huh? What part of: >The only good GAMEPLAY aspect of DD are the pawns and your ability to regulate their behavior. ...you didn't get?
Charles Cruz
And you are especially retarded. Tetriminoes existed before Tetris you dumb fucking heathen. God you're both so offensively dumb. I'm actually offended by how stupid OP and anyone circlejerking with him is. Kill yourselves.
Angel Clark
>crafting is mediocre >dialogue is mediocre >choice paths in the story are ok >mobility is ok >combat is meh >companions system is good Do i keep going? If it wasn't for the pawns nobody would bother with this game.
Kayden Kelly
yes, geometry is old, we know first use of these shapes for gameplay was in an ~5 thousand year old chinese game commonly known as 5-in-row
Jayden Russell
>I would play games with no textures aslong the gameplay is good 1. That would be literally impossible. No textures = no nothing. 2. You may think you'd play them, but you wouldn't.
Liam Wilson
read a book nigger
Mason Martin
Ah yes, all those soccer moms with colorful tetris copies on their phones... truly the future of gaming.
>even though "no graphics" isn't even a viable scenario False. It is easier to program a "game" that simply runs and even receives inputs but does not show any outputs to the user. You can even approximate this by playing a game you know extremely well with your TV turned off, if you know it well you'll still be able to do some stuff in the game (e.g. you know what the controls do already). >and your argument is complete dogshit, i'd very much prefer a good audio book with some form of dialogue choices to make it qualify as a game to a completely empty tech demo with outstanding graphics Firstly, whether it's an audio novel or a standard novel is irrelevant, since audio would also come under the art heading rather than gameplay. Secondly, nothing you just mentioned would qualify as a videogame since it would merely be a "choice your own adventure" novel, not a game; meanwhile, precisely things dismissed as "tech demos" like Doom 3 and Crysis WOULD count as games, and be infinitely better at that than interactive stories. The interactivity in your preferred examples stops at the narrative choices, which is a fucking low bar to be set. In fact, I think your shit taste in vidya has ironically brainwashed you into thinking choices-novels are good examples of interactivity, even though their pre-written nature is completely at odds with interactivity. As a remedy I advise: go to and get into that medium instead of playing shitty choice-focused games and wanting our medium to degenerate into choices-novels. And while you do that you can also look at games that do choices right, by also prioritising graphics and even gameplay, all aspects instead of just story, such as Deus Ex, Fallout, Alpha Protocol.
Zachary Wood
Here, since you seem so obsessed with visuals: Here's a pretty picture representing what you sound like. Isn't this artwork so much better than actually reading?
>>Do you really think games 100 years from now will be inferior to primitive shit like Tetris? >yes. This is pure degeneracy. A pessimistic look towards the future, and an idealistic memory of the past (as if its general standards and goals were not the same as todays). This is the equivalent of boomers who wished vidya never existed and we were still playing board games.
Owen Ramirez
>television today is better than yesteryear's >music today is better than yesteryear's >movies today are better than yesteryear's
Xavier Harris
>Arcade cabinets existed and looked way better than green ASCII you dumb fucking idiots Comparing home gaming to arcade gaming like you just did is being historically ignorant. It was ages before people expected the same standards (or better) at home.
>Tetriminoes existed before Tetris All art styles existed before gaming. You are historically ignorant if you think otherwise. Gaming is a holistic medium, it combines the innovations already made in each artistic medium, and adds interactivity to that. The fact tetriminoes already existed is irrelevant if no other game popularised those shapes in gaming by combining it with addictive and elegantly simple gameplay (and yet again, the supposed counter-example against graphics is once again a case of good artworks justifying simple gameplay).
David Williams
Books don't have visuals or interactivity.
Lucas Moore
I love Witcher 3 but it's a boring movie game you only play through once and never touch it again.
Bentley Ramirez
The reality is that they all peaked with their popularity max. And gaming is decades away from that, it's not even overtaken cinema in popularity yet.
Jayden Wood
I guess that means Anthem is GotY
Caleb Taylor
so is gothic and any TES or ME, still it gets replayed many times over
What is ME without it's distinct setting and artstyle? What is gothic without it's fields and cities? What is TES without it's lore and art? What is MaxPayne without New York? What is SeriousSam without mythos? What is DOOM without demons?
Josiah Kelly
It's weird how Sony is the Western scapegoat for "cinematic" games despite the fact that stuff like CDPR and Rockstar and other open-world dev (Bioware, Bethesda) games have way less mechanical complexity than those extremely polished linear games do.
Connor White
Isn't this literally every story-based single player game?
James Brown
I don't understand why everyone says it looks good though, it's barely above Andromeda.
James Cooper
all of those are fun to play. W3 is a fucking slog to get through.
Liam Parker
>I guess that means Anthem is GotY Do tastelets really think this bad Halo rehash is peak aesthetics?
They do, just you ignore anything that hurts your brain and instead only focus on posts like that.
Carter James
Anyone that says Witcher 3 combat is shit, but also doesn't disclaim that Gothic has some pretty less than stellar melee combat, is biased out the ass. Gothic has much better progression, though
Bentley Young
Do old CRPGs like that even have an action focus in combat? Isn't it more tactical/inventory/attributes focus?
Owen Thomas
why are you constantly comparing it to Gothic in my place? I never even mentioned it, I just called Witcher 3 boring.
Ethan Johnson
Gothic has a lot more focus on stats and gear, yes
